Mihir Shah, member of the Planning Commission and chairman of the committee to redraft rules and guidelines of NREGA, tells Sreelatha Menon that the Act may also cover farm labourers. The consortium of NGOs that recommended changes in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was founded by you, but your suggestions have been criticised. You seem to consider it a lack of demand rather than a supply problem. First, you should...

-The Indian Express   There was a bitter argument over the provisional poverty line put out by the Planning Commission in an affidavit to the Supreme Court, which drew the line at Rs 32 per capita per day in urban areas and Rs 26 per person in rural areas. The Planning Commission has now “clarified” its position. While the Tendulkar Committee line will remain a point of reference, various welfare entitlements will...

-The Times of India   The Rs 32 per capita urban poverty line is a measure only of extreme poverty, not of acceptable consumption-linked daily expenditure. Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and rural development minister Jairam Ramesh have clarified this. They've also stated that prevailing BPL figures won't determine selection of the beneficiaries of social schemes. This hopefully will put an end to the high-decibel protests of opposition parties and...

-The Hindu   The controversy over who in India is ‘poor’ enough to receive state support has been partially laid to rest. A joint statement by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and the Minister for Rural Development has declared that data collected by the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC), 2011 will be the basis for identifying those deemed eligible for entitlements under various central government programmes. India’s official poverty estimates based...

-The Economic Times   Pressure from within and outside the government has forced Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to clarify that the Tendulkar Commission's poverty line was, "not meant to be an acceptable level of living for the aam aadmi." Ahluwalia said a new methodology will be worked out to determine entitlements of beneficiaries under various schemes for poor. A Socio-Economic and Caste-Economic census was also underway to survey all rural...